This was a text Stella sent Pablo when he explained exactly what we were eating at his favorite restaurant. More on that later...
After Salsa we woke up late. Later than we'd been waking up which has been very late. LATE. Which means...dogs. After dawn, I ripped into my bathroom kit and found my ear plugs which gained me an extra 5 hours of blessed sleep.
The day was gorgeous as always, so after a stroll for coffee and my usual hour in the park to commune, write and soke up some sun, Stella and I took a bus to La Boca.
La Boca is the port area of town. Every tourist/guide book entry you read stresses the...let's call it not-particularly-safe-ness of the area. (STELLA NOTE - Sorry MOM!!) I glossed over this detail when explaining to Stella where we were headed because the area is also known for its bright and cheery facade. What are essentially tin shacks where people live and work are painted eye-popping colors with paint originally salvaged from ships in the harbor and I was dying to see them. I love me some bright colors. I did make it a point to stress we should head home before dark.
A very LONG bus ride finally deposited us in La Boca. The area was enchanting! Like when Hansel and Gretel find the gingerbread house. So yummy-looking! So colorful! And so dangerous-feeling! It was insane. The area was all but deserted except for a smattering of tourists sitting at a cafe. As Stella and I walked through the nearly-empty promenade, guys did the hard sell on tours, whiskey, anything we wanted. My sterns NOs and lack of eye-contact didn't really work and we had to stalk away. We walked further into town with the hopes of finding a place to stop and get a drink or an ice cream or something. Most everything was closed - I guess for this area weekends are the hot times and Monday serves as their Sunday. It made sense, we just hadn't anticipated it. I quickly had my fill of being tense and on guard - we grabbed a couple bags of homemade cookies and hopped the first bus we could catch. By the way, I mean literally hopped. A bus was pulling out and Stella and I ran to catch it. The driver never slowed beyond a roll and I did my best impression of hopping a freight train. I was appalled as only a girl who rarely takes public transportation can be. Stella was all "...what? Big deal."
That evening we went to this Vietnamese place we had heard a lot about. The food was good -- really, by LA standards, just fine -- BUT the fact that we were ingesting vegetables and tastes other than beef, cheese and bread was so refreshing, we were happy as rabbits. So happy and delirious, that we walked home (okay, we took a short cab-ride through the scary train track part of town, but then got out as soon as we were back on the well-lit streets) and I almost got myself killed by running into oncoming traffic. Here's the thing: street lights do this crazy dance where they not only turn yellow before they turn red, but they also turn yellow before they turn green. High off cabbage salad, I darted across the street at a yellow light -- Bad! Bad Bianca, I know! Thank god I'm fast. I feel extra bad though, because I suspect Stella had a very small myocardial infarction.(STELLA NOTE - i not only had a heart attack, but I found myself screaming "Oy!! Bianca Arvin!!" at the top of my lungs. quite embarrassing)
This morning we slept in. All the way in. Why? No dogs. It was silent all morning because for the first time since we landed it was raining and freezing. We spent all morning in, listening to it rain and thunder. When we couldn't stand it anymore, we escaped into the weather for coffee. Because this was our last full day, there was an over-whelming feeling of "Huh." We'd walked all over, had some things in mind to see, but nothing really moving us to expend a ton of energy in pursuing it. Finally, it was cabin fever that shoved us out of the flat and we hopped the Subte back to the financial district. From there I figured we would walk back into San Telmo and head to the Museum of Modern Art. We did just that, wandering in and out of stores and squinting into the sky that had suddenly cleared. We found the Museum...it was closed for renovation, and had been since 2007. From the looks of it, they weren't in any hurry because the place looked like a crack den.
Before heading back to the Subte, we decided to stop for a bit of pizza. Now, Stella and I have had tonight's dinner planned all week. Our new friend Pablo recommended his favorite local parrilla and we were all set to have our last big Buenos Aires eat-fest there. But we still had 3 hours until dinner and both of us needed a nibble. Our stop was fraught with drama and intrigue as 2 drunk locals raised enough hell that the police were called. Drama because there was tons of yelling; intrigue because I couldn't understand what they were yelling about beyond soccer and politics. Maybe that was enough. Regardless, Stella and I finished a whole small pizza.
This leads us to the sad part of the story. We cabbed it to Don Zenon, Pablo's recommendation, to discover it was everything we could ever want in a Buenos Aires restaurant. There wasn't a tourist in sight. The place was in a tiny barrio they don't even cover in the guide books. And...it was ALL YOU CAN EAT! For very, VERY CHEAP!
I made it through 2 courses before I felt too sick to continue. DAMN THAT MEDIOCRE PIZZA! I had eaten too much to choke down more than 2 bites of steak. The whole meal looked like this.
Course #1: Garlic toast and sausage. A beef empanada.
Course #2: Frites and fried plataines. Asado. (For those of you who aren't aware because I sure wasn't, asado is a plate of Cow Everything. Chorizo, blood sausage, sweetbreads, kidneys, small intestine, and...wait for it...testicles.) I made it a point to try everything on the asado plate.(STELLA NOTE- i took one bite and realized my terrible error in judgement. I ate no further of the mystery meat. but I'm pretty sure i ate some kidney thing...) Which may be why I got nauseous and dizzy enough to thinly sip my coke for the rest of my meal. One thing I ate was very tasty though greasy as hell. Let's all assume it wasn't testicles.
Course #3: Steak. We ordered asado de tira, which is ribs, per Pablo's suggestion. Stella enjoyed the steak course while she watched me twirl my hair around my finger and mouth-breathe. As soon as she was done, she told the waiter "Fin." (STELLA NOTE - i often fall into French..Bianca makes fun of me....)He got it.
Course #4: But he DID offer us dessert. And no matter how sick I am, I can never turn down dessert and thank God because we discovered something better than flan with dulce de leche, which until tonight was the perfect ending to every meal. We ordered pear, poached in red wine sauce, with vanilla ice cream. Mother of pearl!! Not only did it taste better than flan, it cured me! My stomach settled and I smiled.
Poached pear and all's right with the world. I'm gonna go eat some cookies.
La Boca in all its colorful glory
For real, La Boca was DESERTED
This woman is trying to wake this dead cat (STELLA NOTE - This cat is not dead. And when i told Bianca it wasn't dead she said "it will be when I tell the story".
After Salsa we woke up late. Later than we'd been waking up which has been very late. LATE. Which means...dogs. After dawn, I ripped into my bathroom kit and found my ear plugs which gained me an extra 5 hours of blessed sleep.
The day was gorgeous as always, so after a stroll for coffee and my usual hour in the park to commune, write and soke up some sun, Stella and I took a bus to La Boca.
La Boca is the port area of town. Every tourist/guide book entry you read stresses the...let's call it not-particularly-safe-ness of the area. (STELLA NOTE - Sorry MOM!!) I glossed over this detail when explaining to Stella where we were headed because the area is also known for its bright and cheery facade. What are essentially tin shacks where people live and work are painted eye-popping colors with paint originally salvaged from ships in the harbor and I was dying to see them. I love me some bright colors. I did make it a point to stress we should head home before dark.
A very LONG bus ride finally deposited us in La Boca. The area was enchanting! Like when Hansel and Gretel find the gingerbread house. So yummy-looking! So colorful! And so dangerous-feeling! It was insane. The area was all but deserted except for a smattering of tourists sitting at a cafe. As Stella and I walked through the nearly-empty promenade, guys did the hard sell on tours, whiskey, anything we wanted. My sterns NOs and lack of eye-contact didn't really work and we had to stalk away. We walked further into town with the hopes of finding a place to stop and get a drink or an ice cream or something. Most everything was closed - I guess for this area weekends are the hot times and Monday serves as their Sunday. It made sense, we just hadn't anticipated it. I quickly had my fill of being tense and on guard - we grabbed a couple bags of homemade cookies and hopped the first bus we could catch. By the way, I mean literally hopped. A bus was pulling out and Stella and I ran to catch it. The driver never slowed beyond a roll and I did my best impression of hopping a freight train. I was appalled as only a girl who rarely takes public transportation can be. Stella was all "...what? Big deal."
That evening we went to this Vietnamese place we had heard a lot about. The food was good -- really, by LA standards, just fine -- BUT the fact that we were ingesting vegetables and tastes other than beef, cheese and bread was so refreshing, we were happy as rabbits. So happy and delirious, that we walked home (okay, we took a short cab-ride through the scary train track part of town, but then got out as soon as we were back on the well-lit streets) and I almost got myself killed by running into oncoming traffic. Here's the thing: street lights do this crazy dance where they not only turn yellow before they turn red, but they also turn yellow before they turn green. High off cabbage salad, I darted across the street at a yellow light -- Bad! Bad Bianca, I know! Thank god I'm fast. I feel extra bad though, because I suspect Stella had a very small myocardial infarction.(STELLA NOTE - i not only had a heart attack, but I found myself screaming "Oy!! Bianca Arvin!!" at the top of my lungs. quite embarrassing)
This morning we slept in. All the way in. Why? No dogs. It was silent all morning because for the first time since we landed it was raining and freezing. We spent all morning in, listening to it rain and thunder. When we couldn't stand it anymore, we escaped into the weather for coffee. Because this was our last full day, there was an over-whelming feeling of "Huh." We'd walked all over, had some things in mind to see, but nothing really moving us to expend a ton of energy in pursuing it. Finally, it was cabin fever that shoved us out of the flat and we hopped the Subte back to the financial district. From there I figured we would walk back into San Telmo and head to the Museum of Modern Art. We did just that, wandering in and out of stores and squinting into the sky that had suddenly cleared. We found the Museum...it was closed for renovation, and had been since 2007. From the looks of it, they weren't in any hurry because the place looked like a crack den.
Before heading back to the Subte, we decided to stop for a bit of pizza. Now, Stella and I have had tonight's dinner planned all week. Our new friend Pablo recommended his favorite local parrilla and we were all set to have our last big Buenos Aires eat-fest there. But we still had 3 hours until dinner and both of us needed a nibble. Our stop was fraught with drama and intrigue as 2 drunk locals raised enough hell that the police were called. Drama because there was tons of yelling; intrigue because I couldn't understand what they were yelling about beyond soccer and politics. Maybe that was enough. Regardless, Stella and I finished a whole small pizza.
This leads us to the sad part of the story. We cabbed it to Don Zenon, Pablo's recommendation, to discover it was everything we could ever want in a Buenos Aires restaurant. There wasn't a tourist in sight. The place was in a tiny barrio they don't even cover in the guide books. And...it was ALL YOU CAN EAT! For very, VERY CHEAP!
I made it through 2 courses before I felt too sick to continue. DAMN THAT MEDIOCRE PIZZA! I had eaten too much to choke down more than 2 bites of steak. The whole meal looked like this.
Course #1: Garlic toast and sausage. A beef empanada.
Course #2: Frites and fried plataines. Asado. (For those of you who aren't aware because I sure wasn't, asado is a plate of Cow Everything. Chorizo, blood sausage, sweetbreads, kidneys, small intestine, and...wait for it...testicles.) I made it a point to try everything on the asado plate.(STELLA NOTE- i took one bite and realized my terrible error in judgement. I ate no further of the mystery meat. but I'm pretty sure i ate some kidney thing...) Which may be why I got nauseous and dizzy enough to thinly sip my coke for the rest of my meal. One thing I ate was very tasty though greasy as hell. Let's all assume it wasn't testicles.
Course #3: Steak. We ordered asado de tira, which is ribs, per Pablo's suggestion. Stella enjoyed the steak course while she watched me twirl my hair around my finger and mouth-breathe. As soon as she was done, she told the waiter "Fin." (STELLA NOTE - i often fall into French..Bianca makes fun of me....)He got it.
Course #4: But he DID offer us dessert. And no matter how sick I am, I can never turn down dessert and thank God because we discovered something better than flan with dulce de leche, which until tonight was the perfect ending to every meal. We ordered pear, poached in red wine sauce, with vanilla ice cream. Mother of pearl!! Not only did it taste better than flan, it cured me! My stomach settled and I smiled.
Poached pear and all's right with the world. I'm gonna go eat some cookies.
La Boca in all its colorful glory
For real, La Boca was DESERTED
This woman is trying to wake this dead cat (STELLA NOTE - This cat is not dead. And when i told Bianca it wasn't dead she said "it will be when I tell the story".
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